Josh Van Diest's page

Ok.

Thank you! I Love You! In a totally platonic way, of course. :)

If Paizo is able to do this, you will all be my heroes and I will sing your praises from the mountaintops. I'm lucky enough to have bought a copy of Gods of Darkness (The Complete Novels) when it was still on shelves. Alas, I missed my opportunity to purchase The Midnight Sun (Complete Short Stories), which now averages about $75 for a used copy.

I went the opposite way. I bought a copy of Midnight Sun from the Science Fiction Book Club for a relatively low price but couldn't afford Gods of Darkness until it was too late. Fortunately, I have old paperback copies of Bloodstone and Darkness Weaves. I'll sing Paizo's praises too if they can help me complete my collection.

OK. REH's Red Sonya first appeared in "The Shadow of the Vulture" (The Magic Carpet, January 1934). Red Sonja is based on this character in the Conan comics from Marvel, first appearing in February, 1973.

Jirel of Joiry first appeared in "Black God's Kiss," October 1934.
I guess REH's character appeared first, but I would be unsurprised if the comic adaptation of Red Sonja takes elements from the Jirel stories.
Thanks wikipedia! Here's hoping this stuff is accurate!

For more on the genesis of Red Sonya, check out Echoes of Valor III edited by Karl Edward Wagner (Tor 1991). It contains the only Red Sonya story Howard wrote - "The Shadow of the Vulture" - as well as a brief introduction by Karl about the Red Sonya/Red Sonja issue. If you can stomach paying money for it, something I don't recommend, you can pick up a copy of Red Sonja #1: The Ring of Ikribu by David C. Smith and Richard L. Tierney (Ace 1981). It has an introduction by Roy Thomas telling how and why he created the character Red Sonya. I warn you that he says some of the stupidest things I've ever read and if you're as big a Howard fan as I am, you too might fly into an uncontrollable rage. To read about Jirel of Joiry's creation, pick up a copy of Sword Woman by Robert E. Howard (Zebra 1977, Berkely 1979). It's an anthology of stories about Howard's character Dark Agnes de Chastillon who was a sword woman in Dark Ages France who was very similar to Jirel of Joiry. The two are expertly compared and contrasted in a fantastic introduction by Leigh Brackett. Unfortunately, there's no introduction in Jirel of Joiry by C.L. Moore (Ace 1982). I'm really looking forward to reading the introduction to Black God's Kiss to see what Suzy McKee Charnas has to say about the whole thing.

Over the last 15 years I have made a hobby of being a bit antiquarian, and, yes, this is an expensive undertaking, but we all have our eccentricities. All told, just collecting originals of Weird Tales has run me into the thousands of dollars. I have the June 1938 Weird Tales, which contains the second half of "Thunder in the Dawn," so I'll be looking forward to finally reading the complete story; and I have the October 1938 and January 1941 issues of Weird Tales, including "Beyond the Phoenix" and "Dragon Moon. " I have the Chaosium 1995 edition of The Book of Iod, which contains "The Spawn of Dagon" with a nice introduction by Rob Price. I have a chapbook from UNC-CH, Dark Dreams vol. XXXI, which includes "Cursed be the City," so I will definitely be looking forward to reading "The Citidel of Darkness" for the first time. I am very excited to see all these tales in one volume, under competent editing. Speaking of which, I also hope each book includes an introduction from you or Paizo, hopefully including some historical data, and literary insights.

EDIT:
If anyone owns the Gryphon 500-print run of the 74pp Prince Raynor stories, I'd be happy to negotiate a price... ;-)

You can find both "Cursed Be the City" and "The Citadel of Darkness" in Echoes of Valor III edited by Karl Edward Wagner. There are also stories by Robert E. Howard, Manly Wade Wellman, Jack Williamson, and Nictzin Dyalhis in that anthology. I also reccomend the second book in that three volume set because it has stories by Robert E. Howard, C.L. Moore, Leigh Brackett and Ray Bradbury, and Manly Wade Wellman. the first book in the set isn't as good because it only has three stories by three writers - Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, and Henry Kuttner - whereas the other books have nine stories apiece. Which is not to say that you shouldn't buy Elak of Atlantis. I know I will just as soon as I can afford to.

Personally, the books I'm looking forward to are Almuric by Robert E. Howard and The Swordsman of Mars by Otis Adelbert Kline. Partially because they're two of my favorite writers and partially because I ordered them both earlier this week and haven't been able to check the mail yet. I'm like a kid on Christmas Eve. :)

As for the books listed, I'm most interested in Black God's Kiss and Elak of Atlantis. After Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, I think C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner are the best of the Weird Tales writers. The first time I read "Black God's Kiss" I was in a daze because it was one of the best things I'd read since discovering REH. The same goes for the rest of the Jirel stories and the two aforementioned stories by Kuttner. After that I'd say The Secret of Sinharat. I've been a huge Leigh Brackett fan after reading an old copy of The Best of Leigh Brackett. She writes Mars just as well as Moore and maybe better than Kline or Burroughs. I'm going to pass on the other two as I'm not much a fan of Moorcock or Gygax.

What I would like to see next is all of Manly Wade Wellman's Hok of Atlantis stories in one book.